Welcome To Our Crazy/Brave Adventure!
Hello! Perri, here! I’m a retired teacher and the primary writer here. Dan works remotely and that keeps him pretty busy. A couple of years ago, we gave up our house and 25 years’ worth of stuff to live on the road in our simple, self-built camper van, Stevan.
Now that our kids are grown, we want to explore while we can, even if it means giving up a bit of security to do it. We aren’t wealthy van-lifers; We’re just doing our best to live frugally while exploring the wild places we love.
This site is a little bit of everything. Foremost, it’s a record of our lives and travels. (We also keep a daily “Vanlife diary” on instagram.) But it’s also a chance to share what we learn on the road. When we were mulling over our crazy brave decision to sell the house and move into our beloved Ford Econoline, we found the websites and blogs of other travelers super helpful and encouraging. So we are doing our best to pay it forward.
We hope our adventures– and misadventures– will help new nomads to find their groove. To that end, we do our best to document our journey, missteps and all. Our posts range from the practical to the pensive: off-grid camping tips, budgeting, rockhounding and hiking ….. also, the nature of the universe, and hacks for happy wandering.
In short, this site is a random van-life buffet 🙂
A Simple Plan
We decided on a low budget, simple van build: no graywater tank, toilet or shower. And two plus years later, we can honestly say this particular van life style is a good fit for us.
Our van is a bit cramped, with few of the bells and whistles found in more “glampy” vehicles. But we have no car payments, few repair bills, and can live within our means (most of the time). That’s worth more than headroom to us.
We’ve added some amenities since we started out: more solar panels, a refillable propane canister, a few extra cupboards, a Starlink satellite system, and a humongous awning that doubles our living space in rainy or searing weather. But it’s still the same teeny space.
No worries! We live OUT of the van rather than IN it.
Empty Nesting
“Van life” is a new adventure for us, but we’ve explored in other ways. We lived a rural “farm life” in Western Massachusetts for over 20 years and enjoyed “tent life” and “teardrop life” road-tripping across the US and Canada with our three children.
Our kids are grown now, and we are reclaiming an old dream: to live and work on the road, exploring remote trails and campsites, testing our mettle on rugged backcountry roads, and– most of all– making the most of our “now”.
We are not planners or organizers. We tend to jump in with both feet… then figure out how to swim.
Why Crazy/Brave?
When we started floating the idea of full time van travel, our friends and relatives had two responses: “That’s crazy” or “That’s really brave”…. which we suspect meant the same thing: “What the heck are you thinking?!”
We know we are a little crazy to leave our comfy, settled lives to embark on this adventure… and maybe we are a little brave. But waiting until we were older and financially “set” seemed the more frightening option to us. All we have is now, so we figure to make the most of it.
In Memoriam: Milo
Our adventure dog, Milo, ended his adventure a few weeks shy of our two year “vanniversary”. We miss him terribly. He was a great adventurer and our bestest buddy. It was our privilege to share our lives with him.
